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Feel free to answer my open question to you, and I'll consider continuing to answer yours.

Since I'm not conducting a witch hunt, or participating in yours, the question doesn't apply to me. However, if you could link to the answer that began your "continuation", it would probably answer my question anyway. Then I might consider answering your question.

__________________"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated." -- Mahatma Gandhi

The white nationalists' interest in "preserving the Confederate statue" is wholly a function of their white nationalism. It's patently absurd to assert or even imply it's reasonable to expect that an entire troop of avowed white nationalists would hold a rally in support of Confederate symbols in a way that is "separated" from their white nationalist beliefs.

I'd say nuclear weapons are even more powerful. As for example demonstrated by the two major terrorist attacks involving them in 1945.

Yet nukes are even mightier, just look at them:

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I did say "among" the most powerful... But despite the destruction of nukes, I do believe that an idea can spread throughout the globe and reverberate throughout the ages in ways that will change people's live more than a few nuclear weapons. And words are what influence if and who gets nuked. But no doubt the effects of 10,000 nukes would have some serious staying power.

In Germany in the 1920s and 30's there were Nazis, Nazi sympathizers, Nazi enablers. And Nazi dupes. Important to remember that they all contributed to the events that led to many millions of people dead.

Reading this thread has been seriously depressing to me, but it is so reassuring and thrilling for me to see that so many people in the real world, especially people with political views different from mine, agree that Nazis are not okay! Really-if we couldn't come together on the idea that Nazis were bad what hope was there for this country?

__________________With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations

In Germany in the 1920s and 30's there were Nazis, Nazi sympathizers, Nazi enablers. And Nazi dupes. Important to remember that they all contributed to the events that led to many millions of people dead.

In the 1920's and 30's most Germans paid little attention to the Nazis (who could hardly be taken seriously, let's face it) and took positions between Conservative and Social Democrat. I suppose one could call them "enablers", but one has to have some sympathy for them. Their world was very new to them, and they had no idea how fragile it was.

Judge not, that ye be not judged.

__________________It's a poor sort of memory that only works backward - Lewis Carroll (1832-1898)

God can make a cow out of a tree, but has He ever done so? Therefore show some reason why a thing is so, or cease to hold that it is so - William of Conches, c1150

It was a rally sponsored by white nationalists. It was white nationalists who acquired the permit for the rally. In short, it was a white nationalist rally.

So exactly who are these other people who just happened to be innocently part of that same rally? Who are these "very fine people" who stood shoulder-to-shoulder with people waving Nazi flags and chanting anti-Semitic slogans?

The nature of these things is some highly organized people went about getting a permit and the insurance rider and everything else and about 90% of the people who show up seem to think these things happen because an event got shared on facebook. Or rather 300 events by a whole range of interested parties many of whom didn't do any homework and the attendees even less.

Go to a demonstration over 100 people. You'll run into dozens of people there quite excited to discuss with you their particular Theory of Everything. You will spend maybe 20% of the time discussing the actual issue that was the purported purpose, assuming you weren't drawn there under the pretense of a different reason to begin with.

Now, after the scene got contentious and violent? I'd be willing to be the crowd thinned dramatically before or during that phase. Among those who left at that point, I could see it being the case that they've got some troublesome thought patterns going on, but could ultimately be harmless.

Beyond that, we still have a problem of celebrating a group of people being attacked for crimes they 'will almost certainly commit' in the streets.

How do we designate who is and is not to be allowed to be a Nazi hunter? Because what if Nazis infiltrate the Nazi hunters and accuse key community figures of being Nazis?

You appear to have missed my point so I will explain it: Trump's response to the Nazi rally is viewed as embarrassingly inadequate or worse by an amazingly wide spectrum of people of different positions and political views.I am very heartened by that given that feeling has not been universal in this Forum. I understand why you are so eager to return to the distracting argument that Anti-fa is anti freedom of speech: defending Trump's response is clearly much more difficult.

I've discussed Anti-fa before. But my post to which you responded was only about the widespread revulsion in response to the white supremacists and the rejection of Trump's questionable sympathies and lack of statesmanship.

In the 1920's and 30's most Germans paid little attention to the Nazis (who could hardly be taken seriously, let's face it) and took positions between Conservative and Social Democrat. I suppose one could call them "enablers", but one has to have some sympathy for them. Their world was very new to them, and they had no idea how fragile it was.

Judge not, that ye be not judged.

I was not judging them so much as warning those in this forum who believe that the USA Nazis are not a threat. The same was believed by many Germans. History sadly proved to them that they were incorrect in their confidence.

Reading this thread has been seriously depressing to me, but it is so reassuring and thrilling for me to see that so many people in the real world, especially people with political views different from mine, agree that Nazis are not okay! Really-if we couldn't come together on the idea that Nazis were bad what hope was there for this country?

The coming together around Trump's response is predicated on the common belief that Nazism is a bad thing. Worse than Communism even, and that was seriously bad.

Trump not really getting this at all is what's earning him pariah status.

__________________It's a poor sort of memory that only works backward - Lewis Carroll (1832-1898)

God can make a cow out of a tree, but has He ever done so? Therefore show some reason why a thing is so, or cease to hold that it is so - William of Conches, c1150

The Rise of the Violent Left
Antifa’s activists say they’re battling burgeoning authoritarianism on the American right. Are they fueling it instead?

Quote:

For progressives, Donald Trump is not just another Republican president. Seventy-six percent of Democrats, according to a Suffolk poll from last September, consider him a racist. Last March, according to a YouGov survey, 71 percent of Democrats agreed that his campaign contained “fascist undertones.” All of which raises a question that is likely to bedevil progressives for years to come: If you believe the president of the United States is leading a racist, fascist movement that threatens the rights, if not the lives, of vulnerable minorities, how far are you willing to go to stop it?

In Washington, D.C., the response to that question centers on how members of Congress can oppose Trump’s agenda, on how Democrats can retake the House of Representatives, and on how and when to push for impeachment. But in the country at large, some militant leftists are offering a very different answer. On Inauguration Day, a masked activist punched the white-supremacist leader Richard Spencer. In February, protesters violently disrupted UC Berkeley’s plans to host a speech by Milo Yiannopoulos, a former Breitbart.com editor. In March, protesters pushed and shoved the controversial conservative political scientist Charles Murray when he spoke at Middlebury College, in Vermont.

As far-flung as these incidents were, they have something crucial in common. Like the organizations that opposed the Multnomah County Republican Party’s participation in the 82nd Avenue of Roses Parade, these activists appear to be linked to a movement called “antifa,” which is short for antifascist or Anti-Fascist Action. The movement’s secrecy makes definitively cataloging its activities difficult, but this much is certain: Antifa’s power is growing. And how the rest of the activist left responds will help define its moral character in the Trump age.

Quote:

The violence is not directed only at avowed racists like Spencer: In June of last year, demonstrators—at least some of whom were associated with antifa—punched and threw eggs at people exiting a Trump rally in San Jose, California. An article in It’s Going Down celebrated the “righteous beatings.”

If you were innocently a fan of preserving statues, who happened to turn up to the march and didn't notice that it was dominated by Nazis, then you would have had to have been very stupid.

An implausibly useful idiot.

__________________OECD healthcare spending
Expenditure on healthcarehttp://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/health-data.htm
link is 2015 data (2013 Data below):
UK 8.5% of GDP of which 83.3% is public expenditure - 7.1% of GDP is public spending
US 16.4% of GDP of which 48.2% is public expenditure - 7.9% of GDP is public spending

Check out the long Vice piece linked above. You see him all ballsy in a safe hotel room in a different state 36 hours later bragging about how it was a victory for his nutso-assed side. Surrounded by his guns, he's a poster boy for "Happiness is a Warm Gun".

__________________Ha! Foolmewunz has just been added to the list of people who aren't complete idiots. Hokulele
"Chicken **** Poster!"
Help! We're being attacked by sea lions!

Tina Fey on a summer edition of SNL summarized it very well: "I saw Raiders of the Lost Ark and I wasn't confused."

What would Trump take from the movie? "There was violence on every side. Every side. And fine people on each side. And the Nazis had beautiful uniforms. Beautiful. Awful to see them damaged at the end of the movie."

Tina Fey on a summer edition of SNL summarized it very well: "I saw Raiders of the Lost Ark and I wasn't confused."

What would Trump take from the movie? "There was violence on every side. Every side. And fine people on each side. And the Nazis had beautiful uniforms. Beautiful. Awful to see them damaged at the end of the movie."

I think the extent to which most of these statues are not truly memorials can be shown by the fact that James Longstreet seems very underrepresented compared to other Confederates of similar rank, and especially compared to Nathan Bedford Forest.

__________________OECD healthcare spending
Expenditure on healthcarehttp://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/health-data.htm
link is 2015 data (2013 Data below):
UK 8.5% of GDP of which 83.3% is public expenditure - 7.1% of GDP is public spending
US 16.4% of GDP of which 48.2% is public expenditure - 7.9% of GDP is public spending

Reading this thread has been seriously depressing to me, but it is so reassuring and thrilling for me to see that so many people in the real world, especially people with political views different from mine, agree that Nazis are not okay! Really-if we couldn't come together on the idea that Nazis were bad what hope was there for this country?

Yeah, condemning and opposing Nazis didn't used to be a partisan affair. For the most part, it still isn't. It is nice to see so many from all over the political spectrum to for a bit, put aside their differences and say that the Nazis are all bad people and that Trump's downplaying that is abhorrent. What is not so nice are that people are still trying to defend him and them.

Are all the criticisms of Trump over this fair and reasonable? No, but lumping in the most outrageous attacks on him over this as being what 'the left is talking about' is no more valid than lumping in everyone defending Trump with the actual Nazis (although 'useful idiots and inadvertent or intentional enablers is much more fair). There were no good people on the Nazis side of the rally. Maybe some otherwise good people, but so the hell what? Still Nazi supporters at best. That some see this only as another bludgeon to attack 'liberals' is outright dumb. It isn't a 'liberal' thing.

Limiting the counterpoints to the specific invalid or unfair arguments would be much better and of course have the advantage of not providing cover for literal Nazis. One would hope that everyone here would take pains to do that, but sadly for man, attacking liberals is more important than not helping literal Nazis.

__________________Circled nothing is still nothing.
"Nothing will stop the U.S. from being a world leader, not even a handful of adults who want their kids to take science lessons from a book that mentions unicorns six times." -UNLoVedRebel
Mumpsimus: a stubborn person who insists on making an error in spite of being shown that it is wrong